Alex in Wonderland
by Ranwolf
Summary: A teenager runs away from home to get away from an abusive father and ends up in another world


Alex in Wonderland by Ranwolf (ranwolf@hotmail.com) 
    
    
    When I was fourteen, my mother died of cancer. My father started drinking heavily
    soon after. We moved around a lot for the next three years. Mostly because Pop
    couldn't stay sober long enough to hold down a job. At sixteen we moved into a
    trailer park outside of Atlanta.
    Pop managed to get a job as a night watchman at a mall. How he managed to get it,
    I'm still not sure. i was able to get a part-time job after school at a martial arts
    dojo as a living practice dummy for the younger students. The pay wasn't all that,
    but it was fun and I got free lessons.
    I came home one night later than normal after going out with some friends. Jake
    dropped me off in front of the park and I walked up the gravel road to my place.
    I noticed the lights were on. That struck me as odd because Pop didn't get in from
    work until Seven in the morning, just in time to drive me to school. I got to the
    door and heard the t.v. on. When I went in I was blasted by the stench of liquor.
    Going in, I saw my father sprawled on the recliner with a bottle of bourbon in one
    hand and the t.v. remote in the other. "Pop?!," I yelled, "what are you doing here?
    Shouldn't you be at work?"
    Pop turned his head towards me and slurred he was laid off.
    I don't know what possessed me, but I called him a 'Fuck up" and a "No good drunk'.
    As retaliation, he beat the hell out of me. It wasn't the first time he beat me
    when he was drunk, but it was the first time he pulled a knife on me. I think he was
    about as shocked as I was.
    I decided I had enough of this crap and planned on leaving. For the next few weeks
    I avoided the man like the plague. I talked one of my friends at school into picking
    me up for school in the morning. I saved up my money from my job, even cashed a
    savings bond my mother had brought me before she died.
    When I had enough money saved to last me a few weeks, I snuck out of the trailer in
    the middle of the night.
    I walked for what felt like hours down the road. I was going to walk into town and
    hope a bus to Maryland where one of my uncles lived. My thoughts on what I was going
    to tell Uncle Rick was interrupted when a very large pick-up pulled up in front of
    me. I was blinded by the headlights. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the
    glare when I heard the truck door open then close. My heart was racing in my chest
    as I saw two men step in front of the truck.
    "Where ya headin' to, son?," one of the men asked me, I could hear the deep slur in
    his voice. He'd been drinking.
    Shit, this is all I need, I thought. "Just heading into town, that's all." I tried
    to make myself sound calm but I don't think I was too successful.
    "Will give ya a ride then," the other guy said. "Hop in."
    "Ahh that's okay," I replied, "You don't have to bother." My gut was telling me to
    get out of there, A.S.A.P. "Thanks anyway." I walked past them, still unable to see
    their faces. One of them grabbed my arm.
    "We insist." Dude's breath reeked. I think I got a buzz off of his breath, because
    the next few minutes were kind of fuzzy.
    The next thing I remember was running through the forest with two drunks chasing
    after me with unknown intentions. I wasn't going to find out, if I had any say in
    it. I could hear them stumbling around in the dark searching for me. I slipped past
    them a few times trying to make it back to the road. But they always managed to stay
    on my trail.
    "There's the little bastard!"
    "Shit! They spotted me. I bolted as fast as I could towards what I thought was the
    road. I broke through the tree line and ran as fast as I could, stopping just in
    time to keep from going over a cliff. "What the fuck?," I cursed. I turned around
    to make a run for it when the cliff edge crumbled under my feet. I went airbornen,
    scrambling to grab onto something that wasn't there. Everything slowed down and
    went everywhere. Up was down, left was right. Then everything went darker than
    night.
    *****
    I'm not sure how long I was out, but by the time I came too, the sun was up. The
    shading from the trees kept the light from going into my eyes. I ached all over, my
    back felt like I've been trampled by a heard of overweight rhinos wearing stellitos
    and I was covered scrapes and bruises.
    I sat up from where I laid, suddenly wishing I didn't. My breath came out in a hiss
    as I waited for the pain to die to a dull ache. The first thing I noticed was the
    blue blanket covering my legs. It wasn't mines, I didn't bring one.
    "Oh good, you're awake." I heard a voice say behind me. I jumped and turned quickly
    to face the speaker. I gasped as a thousand white hot hooks went into my back. My
    mouth opened to scream but only a strangled gasp came out. "Eww." the girl cringed.
    "That had to hurt."
    I glared at her when half the hooks left my back. I blinked when I got a good look
    at her. She was short, at most she would've reached my shoulders(If I was standing
    that is). I guessed she was around my age, maybe a little younger. A cute face was
    framed by a mane of chin length white hair, even her eyebrows were white. She wore
    a business suit of some kind that looked a couple size too large and what looked
    like a pocket watch was hanging around her neck. If her cloths seemed odd the pair
    of white rabbit ears just struck me as weird.
    "Who are you?," I croaked, my throat felt dry as hell.
    "My name's Hare," she replied. She walked towards me timidly. "You took a nasty fall
    off that last night. Lucky for you, you landed in some bushes. Here, drink this.
    It'll make you feel better." She offered me a canteen. I thanked her and took a
    swallow of what I thought was water. Boy, was I wrong! The drink burned down my
    throat and froze my stomach. I coughed and sputtered, feeling like throwing up
    whatever it was I drank. Hare giggled.
    "What the fuck was that?" I gasped, passing back the canteen.
    "Slaynt juice," she replied, recapping the canteen. "Cures what ails you."
    As strange as it sounds, my back was starting to feel better. The constant ache
    from my trapeze act last night slowly disappeared. I looked at my arm and was amazed
    and scared shitless as the ugly purple bruises slowly faded into nothing.
    "Oh my god..." I looked at Hare in disbelief. "How?"
    The girl shrugged. "Dunno how. It just does what it does." She got up and put the
    canteen into a backpack a short way off. "What's your name anyway?"
    "Oh uhm... Alex," I replied, "Alex Carol." I paused for a second trying to think of
    something to say. "Ah, thanks for... for that medicine." I slowly rose to my feet
    worried that I might aggravate my injuries. I was surprised that I felt no pain what
    so ever." WHere are you from, anyway? Not around here that's for sure."
    "I'm from Wonderland," she answered matter of factly, as if it were a common answer.
    "Come again?" The girl must be high or something.
    "Wonderland," she repeated. She grunted lightly lifting the large backpack off the
    ground, seemingly having trouble with the weight. After successfully getting it on,
    she said, "I guess you never heard of it." For some reason I decided to play along
    with the girl. "I suppose you're White Rabbit."
    She blinked. "White Rabbit is my grandfather. You've heard of him?" I chuckled.
    "You could say that." I looked at her watch. "Are you late for an important date?"
    Hare looked at me strangely, then at her watch. "Nope. But I should be heading back
    to the Gate before it closes. I don't want to be stuck in this world for a year."
    Okay, I admit it, I was curious. "Gate? What Gate?"
    "The Magic Gate connecting this world to Wonderland."
    "Oh, that Gate. How silly of me."
    Hare frowned. "You don't believe me."
    "Yes I do," I lied. I gave back the blanket that was obviously hers, which she
    promptly stuffed back into her backpack. "Mind if I tag along? I'd like to see this
    Gate of your's." I knew I was pushing my luck following someone on a weird trip. But
    what the hell.
    Hare looked like she was thinking it over. "Sure. I don't see why not."
    So despite my better judgment, I went with the rabbit-girl. We talked while she lead
    me deeper into the forests. It seemed she believed she was a member of the Corp of
    Royal Messengers. Her version of Wonderland, though similar to the Disney movie I
    watched as a kid, was different from what I knew. The Queen of Hearts was a kind,
    generous woman who was trying to make up for the decades of tyranny her infamous
    grandmother committed. The Carpenter and Walrus were considered the two most heinous
    mass murderers in Wonderland history, killing and eating over thirty of the Oisher
    tribe of coastal fishermen. The Mad Hatter wasn't some crazy old man with a tea
    party fetish, but a well respected alchemist and doctor who created the Slaynt
    juice.
    Hare may have been delusional, but it was the most detailed delusion I ever heard
    of. A small part of me was hoping there was a gate.
    *****
    Sometime later we reached a clearing of some kind. "We're here," said Hare. I looked
    around, but saw nothing but a whole bunch of trees, bushes and rocks.
    "So, where'e the gate?" I asked smugly. I folded my arms across my chest and waited
    for her to come up with an explanation.
    "It's behind those boulders." She pointed off to a group of massive boulders that
    looked to be piled on top of the other.
    "Okay. Let's get you home." It may have sounded cruel but I wanted this girl to face
    reality. And I figured showing her that there was no gate would help. We headed
    towards the boulders. Halfway there, I began to hear a low-pitched hum. No, it
    couldn't be.
    When we made our way around the boulders, there it was. A honest to f-ing god gate.
    Well, actually it wasn't really a gate, but some kind of... hole in the air.
    Star Trek used the term "wormhole". It was glowing purple and white along the edges
    with a yellowish mist seeping off in every direction at once. The hum I heard before
    seemed to intensify in tempo and pitch as we got closer. I just stared at the gate
    for what felt like forever. Hare chuckled and reached over to nudge my open mouth
    closed.
    "I bet you thought I was some girl high on drugs or something, huh?" I nodded not
    being able to say anything. But honestly, can you blame me?
    "You know...," Hare began shyly, "you can come with me if you want. I have plenty
    of room at my place and I don't think my housemate will mind."
    I turned towards her, surprised at the offer. She wasn't looking at me but at the
    portal. The light from the Gate was reflecting off her glasses giving her a kind
    of unearthly look. "I know you were running away," she said. I was about to ask
    how she knew, when she explained that I talked in my sleep.
    I guessed my hesitation was obvious, 'cause she looked back at me with such a sad
    expression, I could feel myself feel sympathy for her, even though it was Hare
    feeling sympathetic to me. "I don't know..." I still wasn't sure if that was such
    a good idea. I was still getting used to what was in front of me, never mind
    Wonderland actually existed and I was being invited. If I took Hare up on her offer,
    I'd be stuck there at least a year. What would I do? How would I live? I didn't
    think Wonderland would take american money, and I couldn't mooch off of Hare. That
    wouldn't be right and I let her know it.
    "I can get you a position at the Messenger Corp," she said. "You can be a clerk
    until you learn how to around Wonderland."
    I wondered why she was so adamant to get me to follow her. I thought about it for a
    time, weighing the pros and cons of going. If things didn't work out I'd be stuck
    in a weird world. On the other hand, how many people got the opportunity. It would
    be interesting to see what else was different between the story and realty.
    "Sure. Why not?" Hare's face broke into as bright a smile as I've ever seen.
    "Great, let's go!" Her enthusiasm seemed to be infectious as I found myself running
    the rest of the way to the gate. Hare didn't stop, she ran straight to the gate.
    With an impressive jump, she went through the gate without pause. Me, something held
    me back. I wasn't sure if it was fear of the unknown or the knowledge no one would
    know what happened to me. I stopped right at the edge of the Gate. "I don't believe
    I'm doing this."
    All of the sudden, Hare's hand shot out of the gate and grabbed the front of my
    shirt. "C'mon Alex!" I heard her voice, just before I was pulled through.
    End Chapter I 


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